Heavy objects, such as aircraft monuments comprising galleys, lavatories or other types of objects, often need to be moved from one location to another location. Until recently, moving heavy and bulky objects into an aircraft was done before completion of construction of the aircraft body.
In newer aircraft construction, preloading of monuments through aircraft body openings during construction of the aircraft is not desirable since currently used, newer, construction techniques require the completion of fabrication of all aircraft body structure before the installation of interior structural fixtures and appointments. As a result, it is more desirable to bring aircraft monuments aboard the aircraft through the passenger doorway, and the previously known devices that facilitate transport of monuments have been found to be unsafe and cumbersome to use.
In addition to being inherently unwieldy and awkward, aircraft monuments do not fit vertically through aircraft passenger doors and once in the aircraft, movement of the monuments has been known to result in damage to decorative surfaces.
Known devices for moving heavy objects include carts, dollies, and modified hand trucks. These devices, however, typically do not allow the operator to visually see the pathway or obstructions in the pathway that need to be maneuvered around. This lack of visibility leads to damage of aircraft interior structures. Further, existing devices do not permit large monuments to be transported through the aircraft passenger door. Movement of such monuments requires four to six people and repetitive lifting of interior heavy monuments may result in personal injury to those people.
A device and method are therefore needed to improve the ease of transferring aircraft monument structures from one location such as at a point of completion of fabrication to another location such as at a point of installation, and to enable movement of such monument structures through existing aircraft doorways to points of installation within the aircraft while minimizing the number of people needed to move such structures and maximizing the operators visibility during movement of the monuments.